The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid: the state of being alone.

In overlooking, denying, evading this complexity--which is nothing more than the disquieting complexity of ourselves--we are diminished and we perish; only within this web of ambiguity, paradox, this hunger, danger, darkness, can we find at once ourselves and the power that will free us from ourselves. It is this power of revelation that is the business of the novelist, this journey toward a more vast reality which must take precedence over other claims.

The occurrence of an event is not the same thing as knowing what it is that one has lived through. Most people had not lived -- nor could it, for that matter, be said that they had died-- through any of their terrible events. They had simply been stunned by the hammer. They passed their lives thereafter in a kind of limbo of denied and unexamined pain. The great question that faced him this morning was whether or not had had ever, really, been present at his life.

People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction.

The only thing that white people have that black people need, or should want, is power-and no one holds power forever.

You write in order to change the world ... if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it.

Know from whence you came. If you know whence you came, there are absolutely no limitations to where you can go.